DC To Launch Weekly Series ‘The New 52: Futures End’ Next Year

Though weekly series were recently a major part of DC Comics' plans, the publisher took a few years off from them to focus on its New 52 initiative. Now, more than two years into the new DC Universe, the company is returning to the format with perhaps its most significant attempt at weekly comics yet. On the heels of the recently announced Batman: Eternal year long weekly series, this morning DC revealed plans for The New 52: Futures End, its second weekly book in 2014.

Launching with a free zero issue on Free Comic Book Day next May, this latest project boasts a collection of award winning creative talent: Jeff Lemire, Keith Giffen, Brian Azzarello and Dan Jurgens will script the series, which will feature art from Ethan Van Sciver, Jesus Merino, Aaron Lopresti, Jurgens and more. Set five years into the future of the current DC universe, the title will explore DC's "past, present, and future," according to Lemire. "Really, what we're trying to do with this book is to explore the nature of what a hero is and we're doing that, obviously by playing with the future of the New 52 timeline," Lemire told the AP. "Past present and future all colliding in this story line."

The three focal characters will be Frankenstein in the past, Firestorm in the present and, officially being incorporated into DC Comics' continuity, Terry McGuinness, a.k.a. Batman Beyond, in the future. But the series will boast a cast much larger than that, with Lemire stating that the creative team has a mandate to "create new characters and new concepts that will hopefully have a life beyond the series."

The New 52: Futures End #0 will arrive in stores May 3, with the issue #1 to debut later that month.